Beneath the Lanterns

By C. Litka

No good deed goes unpunished.

When the son of the ruler of the Empire of Azere, Lefe Sol, is told, to his dismay, that he is to marry the eccentric fourth daughter of the Empress of Jasmyne, his friend, Kel Cam, offers to stand by and help him meet this challenge. Kel, however, soon finds himself entangled in the affairs of two great empires, and discovers, to his own dismay, that no good deed goes unpunished.

Beneath the Lanterns is set in an imaginary world of colorful cities, wide steppes, and valleys littered with the ruins of a long lost civilization. It's a world with 16 days of daylight under the yellow lantern, and equally long nights lit by the blue lantern. Caught in the intrigues of empires, Kel Cam is forced to flee for his liberty, if not his life, across this wide and wild world. Beneath the Lanterns is a lighthearted novel of adventure and romance.C. Litka writes old-fashioned novels with modern sensibilities, humor, and romance. His lighthearted novels of adventure, mystery, and travel are set in richly imagined worlds and feature a colorful cast of well drawn characters. If you seek to escape, for a few hours, your everyday life, you will not find better company, nor more wonderful worlds to travel and explore, than in the novels of C. Litka.

• Language: English
• Publisher: C. Litka
• Release date: Aug 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201916015

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Table of Contents

BENEATH THE LANTERNS

Also By C. Litka

BENEATH THE LANTERNS

C. Litka

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Cealanda House Version

(March 2023)

Copyright © 2018 Charles Litka

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Thank you for downloading this eBook. You're welcome to share it with friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form.

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Information about C. Litka and his books can be found at:

C. Litka – Works in Words

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Thank You

I would like to thank my wife and friends who spent many hours making this book better than I could have ever made it by myself – and far more fun. I am very grateful to Sally Litka, Hannes Bimbacher, Dale Shamp, Joe, Walt and Tom Drake for their eagle eyes and all their helpful comments.

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Dedication

To my dear Parents, for all their love.

Dad didn’t get to read my stories, but Mom is discovering science fiction in her 90’s.

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The a map page for Beneath the Lanterns can be found on my blog, here:

Map for Beneath the Lanterns

Chapter 01 Lefe Sol

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01

The rhythmic pad...pause...pad-click, pause...pad... of my footfalls and staff was the only sound in the world. Almost. Certainly the golden light of Dusk Day lancing through the pine boughs to splash across the blue shadows of the road before me made no sound. The wind, however, occasionally stirred itself to hiss through the needles, and once in a while, a hidden bird would sing a short sweet song. Otherwise, it was just me, long striding down the narrow winding road in the warm, semi-twilight of the rim forest. But the road was now going down, which meant that I had crossed the ridge and had entered the Valley of Azera. After three days on the road, I was within several hours of home. And eager to be home.

Nevertheless, I paused, briefly, on reaching a clearing that provided a sweeping view of the Valley of Azera, mellow in the ruddy gold light of the Yellow Lantern, now low over the rim hills to the west, to savor the view. The broad, round valley stretched below me in warm tinted shadows. Lake Zera lay in the valley’s lowest hollow – a dark mirror of the glowing pastel pink, orange, and yellow firmament arching overhead. Its surface was dotted with the specks of boats plying between the city and its six pine-dark pleasure islands, the tallest of which rose from the center of the lake as a rugged spire. The city of Azera wrapped itself around the lake’s eastern shore. Within its walls, its tenements and townhouses were set in a grid of squares, narrow streets and wide boulevards. Outside of its walls, spider web strands of villas and walled mansions spread out from its eight gates set amongst market gardens, ponds, and paddies. A smaller city rose to its southeast, the industrial and caravan port suburb of Contere, where the caravan roads of Nations Street, Lankara and Mayaday crossed.

I rested on my long walking staff for only a minute or two in the warm, pine scented air, hot, sweaty, and weary, before starting off again, down the gentle slope between farm fields, toward the city, for, as I said, I was eager to put an end to my days on the road.

Entering Azera through its Lake Gate, I followed the street known simply as the Reed Bank, along the lake shore until I reached Plum Blossom Street. There I turned into a twilit, canyon-like street, lined by five story tenements, the characteristic buildings of Azera.

When the greatest Prime Consul of the Nations and Peoples of Azere, Hin Dar, began building his capital city, Azera, some 10,750 seasons ago, he built it in the classical pattern of the Elder Civilization – a city of poured stone buildings set in a rigid grid. This is not surprising since he was also the Prime Master of the Society of the Elders – commonly known as the Blue Order – which claims to be the heirs of the Elder Civilization.

Now, as a historian, and one with a scientific outlook, I’m rather skeptical of their claim, to be direct heirs of the Elder Civilization, since that civilization seems to have collapsed some 170,000 or more seasons ago, leaving only mysterious relics of metal and many empty cities of poured stone for us to decipher. The Blue Order’s claim rests on its famous Nine Sages who, only some 11,000 to 12,000 seasons ago, collected and wrote down the oral stories, legends, and traditions of the fabled Elder Civilization which had been passed down through the long Dark Age.

While I may be skeptical of the historical authenticity of the stories in the Dark and Dawn Classics, I do believe they contain clues to the true nature of the Elder Civilization which may be useful in aiding the scientific understanding of our preceding civilization. For that reason I’ve spent many’a bright day in a dim and dusty Blue Order library making copies of the original Nine Sages manuscripts, searching for such clues. Indeed, I was returning from just such an excursion. But before this turns into a long-winded lecture, a common vice of mine, let us return to Plum Blossom Street and the dim in the shadows of the Hin Dar’s poured stone tenements that stretched into the distance of the straight street.

Azera consists, with a few exceptions, of two styles of buildings – the flat roofed, five story tenements arranged in squares around a central courtyard and the smaller, more ornate townhouses that line the broad boulevards that crisscross the city. Small shops and workshops make up the tenements’ street-facing ground floors, while finer shops and cafes are to be found along the boulevards in the ground floor of the townhouses. Townhouses, while built of the same poured stone as the tenements, boast a single large living accommodation on each floor – and if wealthy enough, one lives in the whole townhouse, making them the dream of every ambitious tenement dweller to live on the boulevard. Near the White Palace, the townhouses become more grand – mansions with forecourts for the carriages of visitors and a back court for stables and servant quarters. Here you will find the wealthiest of merchants and the townhouses of the nobles of Azere’s nations and peoples, when they visit the court of Azera.

What saves Azera from being a very dreary city is the fact that the exterior of the tenements and townhouses are lined with balconies accessed by floor to ceiling sliding panels built of wood, bamboo, and glass. Every owner or tenant has painted their panels and balcony railings to suit their whim or their cultural heritage. And since Azera is populated by peoples from the four corners of a vast empire of nations, steppe, and hill peoples, the facades of every tenement and townhouse make for a vast mosaic of Azere life, bright with the colors, patterns, fabrics, and artistic styles of its nations and peoples. And to top it all off, whether or not it was intended – there is some debate on this point – the flat roofs of every tenement and townhouse flutter with the colorful laundry of its residents drying on long lines.

All of which is my all too typical long-winded way of saying that when I turned down Plum Blossom Street and joined the throng of cheerful, colorfully dressed citizens on their way home from their day’s labor, I entered not a dreary street, but a living microcosm of life in Azere. Softly lit in the light from the rosy golden firmament overhead, the air was rich with the scents of the food shops and carts that lined the street and echoed with the hawkers’ rhythmic cries, the cheerful chatter of conversations, and the sounds of family life that drifted down from the open panels of the flats overhead. I followed this street past nine squares until I came to Birdsong Square, where I had my quarters. I climbed the stairs to my fifth floor flat, and unlocking the door from the dim central hallway, I stepped into the dark, hot, stuffy room, home at last after nine days away.

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02

I immediately spied a pale square on the floor – an envelope slipped under the door during my absence. I set my staff next to the door, hung my hat on a hook, and tossed my satchel onto the large table, the room’s main furnishing. Picking up the envelope, I crossed the room, slid open the balcony panel, and stepped into the light and fresh air of the balcony to examine the letter. It bore the seal of the Palace Guards, making it from my friend, Lefe Sol, the Palace Guard’s commander, and the third son of the current Prime Consul of Azere. It contained a short note.

Old Teacher,

If you should arrive home today – day 20 that is – before the last quarter, and feel up to it, kindly step around to my office by the last second hour. I need a shoulder to weep on as I have been given my marching orders. Hard orders, indeed. I will stand you dinner at the Mist in the Reeds for the use of your shoulder.

Lefe

A curious note. Old Teacher was a jest, since I was a mere seven seasons older than Lefe. He had, however, been a student of mine in the first class I taught at the University, hence my ironic title. Though he was a son of the ruler of the nations and peoples of Azere, and I was merely young scholar fresh out of the University of Kara, Lankara, and a newly arrived stranger in Azera at the time, he had made it a point to befriend me – we shared a passion for stick fighting – and to introduce me to the city of Azera and his wide circle of friends. We have been the best of friends since then.

The note’s offhand, even jovial, tone contrasted with its message. Even after some 67 seasons in Azera I sometimes found it hard to decide where the polite cheerfulness that Azere society expects in public relationships ends and the real cheerfulness, if it existed, begins. Since Lefe Sol was a naturally cheerful fellow, I couldn’t decide if his troubles were so trivial that he was making a joke of them, or if they were serious and he was making a socially polite joke of them.

And why me? Lefe Sol was a very outgoing and naturally cheerful fellow, with a wide circle of friends. While we were the best of friends, I was hardly his only friend with a shoulder he could weep on. Indeed, being a very charming and eligible member of the Empire’s first family, the Sols, there was no shortage of lovely daughters of the nobility willing to lend their shoulders to him. So why mine?

In the end, I just shrugged. I’d find out soon enough, for I owed too much of my present happiness to his kindness not to lend my shoulder, even without the prospect of a dinner at the Mist in the Reeds Tea House, which alone made hauling my aching body along to the barracks, and the risk of a damp shoulder, well worthwhile.

Drawing my pocket chronometer I found that it was not yet the last hour of the day’s third quarter, so I had an hour to bathe, rest, and speculate as to what misfortune had befallen my friend.

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03

After sponging off the dust and sweat of travel, and making myself a cup of tea, I pulled a reed chair onto my balcony that overlooked the tops of Birdsong Square’s gnarled old pines to drink my tea and contemplate – nothing much at all. Indeed, I may have dozed until the time-bells of the city’s squares rang four times announcing the day’s last quarter and startling me out of my contemplation. I climbed stiffly to my feet – I now ached all over – donned my finest set of clothes, and set out for the White Palace.

While the homeward rush of residents had ebbed, there were still short lines at the various hole-in-the-wall, soup and noodle, bun and little eats, stir-fry, and fire-roast shops that lined the ground floor of the squares I passed. Indeed, the atmosphere of the narrow streets at this time of day was thick and fragrant enough that one could almost sup on breath alone. My stomach growled. Wait, I told it. There’s a fine and very expensive feast ahead for us.

The White Palace lay nearly a half an hour’s walk to the west, but with time to spare, I made a leisurely stroll of it, so as not to arrive in a sweat – for it was Dusk Day, the warmest of days, the last day of the Bright Days. And besides, I always savored a walk through the colorful streets of Azera.

Lankara, my homeland to the north of Azere, is a cooler land, with the two lanterns low in the firmament. Much smaller than Azere it has a more staid and monolithic culture. Several thousand seasons ago, a new way of thinking arose that has now made it a far more scientifically and industrially advanced nation than Azere. And while the architecture of Kara, Lankara’s capital city is more creative than Azera’s, it looks almost somber when compared to Azera. Despite, or perhaps because of my Lankarian upbringing, I fell in love with the colorful capital of Azere  Empire – even with having to empty one’s night soil every day in the common night soil house, and haul water up from the pump house in the courtyard. Indeed, 67 seasons later, I have yet to return home. At first I pleaded poverty, as my classes were small and paid me little. However, as they grew in popularity, so did my income. And while one does not become wealthy as a scholar at the University, I could no longer plead poverty. Instead, my excuse became the press of my teaching duties, and my research. All true enough, but not true enough to actually prevent me from making the two day rail journey home to Kara between University terms. But I could not tear myself away from Azera, or my research journeys across the steppes to the libraries of Blue Order communities. So today, I’m very nuch an Azerian. And so, I savored my leisurely stroll through the city to the White Palace in the imperceptibly deepening twilight.  There was a rich, mellow, and pleasantly melancholic air in the narrow, warm, and many flavored streets I followed west to the palace.

Lefe Sol had kindly appointed me Assistant Regimental Historian in order to supplement my meager income during my first seasons teaching at the University. The position involved spending a day each season compiling, editing, and entering the regimental reports into the regiment’s history book. It was enough, however, to make me well known within the ranks, so that I was greeted by the sentry on duty by name, and told that the Colonel was expecting me in his office.

‘Greetings, Old Teacher,’ Lefe exclaimed cheerfully, turning away from the view of Lake Zera that the tall sliding panels of his office offered. ‘A fruitful journey, I trust?’

‘It was. I uncovered a long and, I believe, very early manuscript with commentaries – a collection of stories said to be written by Sax Vix, though they struck me more in the style of Aba Kol than Sax Vix,’ I replied, shaking his proffered hand. ‘I scribbled for three days, with no time to think about what I was writing. I’ll be able to say more when I can go back to read what I’ve scribbled.’

‘I hope they yield many new clues,’ he said with an indulgent smile.

‘I hope so as well. But what dire matter brings me here? You seem to be holding up well in the face of whatever calamity has befallen you.’

‘I assure you, only the iron fortitude of the Sols keeps my tears at bay, for it is indeed, a very sad tale, my friend. Still it can wait, no point spoiling our meal over it. I’ve invited Dar and Fila to dine with us as well, for I will need a chorus of sympathizers to ease my mind.’

‘That grim?’

‘To me, though I fear it may amuse you and the others. You will no doubt say that it is a fate I deserve,’ he said with a sidelong glance and a little laugh.

I was still unsure whether he was simply being polite by putting on that cheerfully public face, as one should in the Azere, or if he was exaggerating his distress as a joke. I was, however, content to wait and did not press him on the matter.

While we waited for his second in command, Captain Dar Larc, to complete his duties and collect his wife Fila, I recounted the highlights, such as they were, of my nine day expedition to the Blue Order community in the Kaj Per valley, a 30 league journey from Azera. I’d spent six days on the road traveling to Kaj Per and back, and only three days in their small library copying the old stories from a carefully preserved manuscript dating from the Dawn Age, some 12,000 seasons ago.

Once Dar and Fila arrived, we set out across the palace grounds for its little harbor within the palace walls. When Hin Dar built his White Palace on the shore of Lake Zera, he built it in the Elder style of poured stone and square boxes. But in the case of the palace, his architects piled those boxes one on top of the other artistically to create many courts and gardens, terraces and towers. We wove our way through the age softened palace, with its lush terraces and gardens, to the boat harbor, talking of nothing of consequence.

A boatman stepped out of his hut, gave a polite bow, and stood, awaiting orders.

‘A punt will do Nars. We’re bound for the Mist,’ said Lefe.

With a brisk ‘Yes, sir.’ he hurried down the steps and pulled one of the wide beamed punts close alongside, and held it steady as we stepped on board. After we had settled in, he pushed off with his pole, and deftly steered it through the watergate and out onto the bright lake.

Lake Zera was still dotted with punts, rowboats, and pleasure barges sporting colorful sails and awnings – even more now since the pleasure islands, with their tea gardens, sing-song houses, dining, wine, and brew pavilions, were only now becoming fully alive as their customers, freed from their day’s labor, were leisurely making their way across the waters to the islands. Overhead, black and white gulls wheeled, calling to each other, while above them, in the eastern firmament, a faint brighter spot marked the ever present Blue Lantern that would again come into its own once the Yellow Lantern left us to visit the far side of the world.

Tea, dining, and wine and brew houses also lined the Reed Bank shore from the palace to the Lake Gate in the south. Wedged between these establishments were long fingers of docks with boats and boatmen waiting to take passengers out to the pleasure islands. The prestige of the establishments faded the further from the White Palace one ventured down the Reed Bank, though fine, and far less expensive fare could be found all along the shore lane. The Mist in the Reeds was not far from the palace, so its bill of fare was far beyond my scholar’s wages. That I dined there now and again, was a perk of being a friend and guest of Lefe Sol.

The tea house stood in the lake itself, beyond the reedy shore. It was reached from the Reed Bank by a walkway that zigzagged over the reeds and lily pads. Perched on four piers, it was a stack of four poured stone boxes.  The lowest was a low, open pier set between the piers at lake level to accommodate customers arriving by boat. Several boats and small barges were already tied up alongside it. Idle bargemen lounged around a score of tables waiting for their masters or fares. Above the pier deck is the main tea room level enclosed by panels. In the Bright Days, these panels were mere screens, opening the tea room to the gentle eastern breezes of the Bright Days. During the Dark Days, these screens were replaced by glazed ones to keep the dark cold days at bay. The upper two boxes were smaller, the lower one surrounded by the roof-deck of the lower level. It was dotted with tables and cushioned reed chairs under a colorful canvas awning for truly open air dining. The uppermost story contained six private banquet rooms with balconies that offered a sweeping view of the lake.

The boatman nosed the punt alongside the dock and we carefully disembarked. Lefe dismissed him, saying we’d take a rickshaw back.

He had reserved one of the smaller banquet rooms, and even as we settled into the cushions of the wide reed chairs around the table, the first of the small treats and light wines were being served by quiet, slim girls in colorfully embroidered satin.

It was only over tea, after the leisurely feast, that Lefe got around to crying on our shoulders.

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04

Lefe stood, and walked onto the balcony, to look out over the lake for a while. Turning back to us, he said, ‘I find that I’m engaged to be married.’

Fila clapped her hands. ‘And about time, too! Who’s the fortunate girl who has won your heart?’

‘The girl who won my heart, and my bride-to-be, are not the same person. Hence my tears,’ he said, with a sad smile and little shrug.

‘Oh...’ said Fila. ‘How did that happen?’

Lefe sighed. ‘It happened because my father has, without consulting me, arranged a marriage for me.’

‘Ahhh...’ I ventured, lifting my hand in inquiry.

‘Yes, Kel?’

‘I was under the impression that you could choose whom to marry, as long as she came from one of the noble families.’

‘That, my dear Old Teacher, was my impression as well.’

‘Oh, come now, Lefe. You were never free to marry just anyone, even from the noble houses,’ objected Fila. ‘There’s always a political calculation in every Sol marriage.’

‘While I was expected to maintain, and ideally, enhance our family’s position with my marriage, I still had a great deal of freedom to choose from the daughters of the nobility...’

‘Certain daughters from certain families.’

‘I’ll have you know, Fila, that, even in the Sol family, a happy marriage is considered worth two or even three purely political marriages. I had a perfectly adequate supply of possible mates to choose from. And while I may have been taking my time choosing one, my father had no excuse stepping in and arranging a marriage for me – without even bothering to consult with me.’

‘ Ahhh... But he did. ’ I said. ‘While Azerian history is not my specialty, I would imagine that, as Fila has suggested, maintaining a delicate balance within the hundred noble families in order to keep the Sol family on the Blue Throne could not be left to pure chance. Or love. And since a member of the Sol family has sat on the Blue Throne for some 7,000 seasons it strikes me that arranged marriages would need to be the norm.’

Lefe shook his head. ‘You must remember, Kel, that even if one assumes that the nobles will elect, as they have for the last 23 elections, a Prime Consul from the Sol family, the Prime Consul can be any member of the extended Sol family. While I may be a son of the current Prime Consul, I’m no closer to the Blue Throne than any of my brothers, sister, cousins, nieces or nephews, so who I marry is of no greater importance than the marriage of any other member of the Sol family. Any of them would have done just as well as I for the political marriage my father has planned.’

‘Oh come now, Lefe. You’re nearly 300 seasons old. You’ve had your chance to choose,’ said the ever practical Fila. ‘I warned you to get serious...’

‘Yes you did. And I did.’

‘So you say. I’ve heard nothing of it.’

‘Nevertheless, I have found her. I’ll say no more.’

‘She comes from a noble family, I hope...’

‘Of course. I’m not that big a fool. For all the good it does me.’

‘So who is your bride-to-be? I trust that’s not a secret as well.’

He sighed. ‘It is for the moment, but I’ll tell you, with a promise not to say anything to anyone until the official announcement.’

‘Yes, of course,’ we agreed.

‘One Ren Loh.’

Fila and Dar exchanged puzzled looks. I was not familiar enough with the noble families of the nations and peoples of Azere to know what that portended.

Fila, turning back to Lefe, said, ‘I can’t seem to place the Loh family. Are they an outside steppe or hill people that your father wishes to draw into the empire?’

‘Oh no, nothing like that. And then again, it’s everything like that. Only on a grander scale. Ren Loh is a daughter of Vinra Loh, the Empress of the Jasmyne Empire. Her fourth daughter.’

‘Oh, my’ said Fila.

Dar and I exchanged a silent glance, trying, and failing, to find something encouraging to say. A marriage uniting the first family of Azere with the matriarchal dynasty of the Jasmyne Empire, Azere’s great rival to the east, was indeed, a marriage on a grand historical and political scale. A scale that certainly doomed Lefe to a marriage with this Ren Loh, whether he liked it or not.

‘We are to be married once the Assembly of Nobles ratifies the trade union treaty,’ continued Lefe grimly, ‘to become a living symbol of the new relationship between our two nations. One can also look on it as an exchange of hostages,’ he added bitterly.

Dar whistled softly. ‘Still, the daughter of the Empress of Jasmyne is a step up from the daughter of even the most wealthy Azerian noble house. So what’s she like?’

‘No one knows.’

‘How can that be?’ exclaimed Fila, ‘She’s not a child bride, is she?’

‘No, she’s also seen the better part of 300 seasons. However my Jasmyne friends from the embassy can tell me little more than that.’

‘Why?’

‘The story they tell is that after the Empress gave birth to three daughters, one of which will be appointed by the Empress to succeed her, the Empress’s consort, wanting a son, talked her into having one more child. This child turned out to be yet another daughter, apparently to everyone’s disappointment. When she was 70 seasons old, the consort and Empress had a falling out and the consort left the court to command the Imperial Lancers Regiment in the field, taking this fourth daughter with him. One version of the story has him intending to raise this daughter as the son he had always wanted. Another has it that he was forced by the Empress to take her with him, since he was the one who insisted on her having a fourth child and she had little love nor any use for this fourth daughter. The consort and his daughter rarely returned to the palace during the following 200 seasons, so she is largely unknown in court circles. When the consort died 14 seasons ago this Ren Loh was summoned back to the palace. However, since all of the Jasmyne embassy staff have been stationed here for longer than 14 seasons, they can relate only the thinnest of rumors about my would-be-bride.’

‘Ahhh...’

‘Yes, Kel?’

‘Just a quick question – does the Prime Consul of Azere possess the authority to force you to marry her?’

Lefe laughed grimly. ‘Forced marriages are not binding under Azere law. But as he pointed out, not only can he make not marrying her a fate far more unpleasant for me than marrying her, but that, given the importance of the treaty to the future of the Empire, refusing to marry this Ren Loh could be looked on as treason.’

‘He wouldn’t go that far!’ exclaimed Fila. ‘Would he?’

‘Well, charging me with treason would do nothing to advance his goals. I mention that only to show you the length he is willing to go to see me married to this Ren Loh. As you well know, it has been the stated goal of every Prime Consul to unite all the lands under the Blue Lantern under the Blue Throne. Father sees this proposed trade union as the penultimate act of that grand design. Seeing that the nations of Cimcara, Tindra, and Kartana to the east of Jasmyne are already in a trade union with Jasmyne, the treaty would bring all but Lankara into a single trade union. And since the Azere Empire has been built on trade, a political union would most certainly follow the trade treaty within a generation...’

‘Guided by a family with potential heirs to both the Blue and Yellow thrones,’ I muttered.

‘Exactly. However symbolic this marriage would be –  the children, or grandchildren of this marriage – would have the blood of both the Sol and Loh families. Who better to rule a united empire?’

‘It would appear that you are, indeed, doomed to marry this Ren Loh,’ I said.

He shrugged and looked away. ‘I grew hoarse arguing otherwise while pointing out that there are plenty of eligible Sol cousins fluttering about who can do the job as well as I.’

‘To no avail,’ I said.

‘Perhaps, and perhaps not.’

‘Oh, come now, Lefe. The marriage of the son and daughter of the two greatest empires is more than a symbol, it is a promise of a long held dream to unite all the nations and peoples under the Blue Lantern. I need not tell you that with rank and privilege comes duty. I am certain you’ll do your duty,’ said Fila, the daughter and granddaughter of guardsmen.

‘Talk of duty is all well and good. My father flung the word at me often enough. But  does he have the moral right to play me – or anyone – as an expendable pawn in the great game of empire?’

‘Oh, don’t be so dramatic. We’re talking about marriage here, not martyrdom.’

Lefe bit back a bitter reply.

I considered my words carefully. ‘I am sorry that it will break your heart, for a time, but who knows, if you give her a chance, you may well come to love this Ren Loh. I think your despondency is premature.’

‘Ah, the golden optimism of a bachelor scholar,’ muttered Lefe.

‘He’s right, Lefe. You’ve no reason to assume the worst in Ren Loh. She may well be all you desire,’ added Fila. ‘She was, after all, raised in the Imperial Lancers Regiment, so you likely have much in common. I dare say, you could do far worse.’

‘Had I not already found a girl to love, I might agree with you.’

‘So you say,’ said Fila with a shake of her head. ‘I say that if you were actually courting someone, I’d have heard of it.’

Lefe smiled sadly. ‘Perhaps I have been very discreet.’

Fila shook her head. ‘Nothing escapes the gossips of the court for long. I assure you, any romance of yours would’ve been known. So why haven’t I heard of it?’

‘Because I met her in my travels as Colonel of the Guards. She isn’t here in Azera, so your court gossips hasn't gotten wind of her.’

‘That being the case, you can hardly know her. You’re never away from Azera for all that long, and you haven’t been on tour for...’

‘Eight seasons. Too long, but we have corresponded for many seasons. And I will see her soon, when her family arrives here for the Assembly of Nobles.’

‘How will she take the news of your engagement?’ I asked.

‘I have just written to her about the matter, assuring her that I would give up an empire for her.’

‘Ah, but will she? Will she defy the wishes of the Prime Consul, perhaps putting her family on the wrong side of the powerful Sol family? Will she put her love before the greater good of a united world under the Blue Lantern?’ asked Fila.

‘You seem determined to have me married to this Ren Loh, Fila,’ he snapped rather irritably. ‘What do you say, Dar? You’ve said nothing so far. What do you suggest I do?’

Dar grinned, and said, ‘Ah, I think I’ll just keep my head down and mouth closed and stay out of the crossfire on this matter, if you don’t mind, Colonel.’

‘Coward,’ laughed his wife, and then turned back to Lefe, ‘I’m of an old Guards family. I’ve grown up with a sense of duty, as I know you have as well. I know that in the end, you’ll do your duty. You truly have my sympathy, Lefe. And if there is anything I can do to help you or your love, just ask. However, while I am sure it will be hard for a while, I know you well enough to know that you will, in the end, make the best of your lot. And I truly doubt that your love would even consider standing in the way of your duty or risk calling down the wrath of the Prime Consul on her family.’

Lefe sighed. ‘Perhaps you’re right. Still I’m far from convinced that it is my duty, seeing that any Sol will suffice. Perhaps I can find a cousin who would like to have an Empress as a mother-in-law...’

‘Who wouldn’t?’ I laughed. ‘Still, I’m sure everything will work out for the best. I wouldn’t worry too much.’

‘Said by a man who’s not been ordered to marry this Ren Loh,’ said Lefe bitterly.

What could I say?

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Chapter 02 Lefe’s Plan

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01

I spent the following day, the first of the two Twilight Days, at the palace working through the regiment’s paperwork in my role as Assistant Regimental Historian in the Palace Guard. The second twilight day found me in my office at the University, collecting my student’s Bright Days’ assignments, reading journals and updating my lecture notes. My classes resumed on the following day, the first Rain Day. I taught three classes during the 12 darkest days of the season, one a day in rotation.

The first class was New Science, Inventions, and Thought, which offered an overview of scientific and industrial advances in my homeland of Lankara. The second was New Science and the Elder Civilization which examined the Elder Civilization in the light of Lankara’s archaeological and technical approach to the subject. My third class, The Dark and Dawn Classics Reconsidered, was my advanced level course where I lectured on my current research into the original Nine Sages’ texts highlighting the possible implications of the wording of these original texts in the light of our new understanding of the Elder Civilization. It was the one dearest to my heart and life’s work, but I’ll say no more about it, since once I start, I have a hard time stopping.

While many classes were taught at the University throughout the season, I taught only during the Dark Days. This arrangement freed me during the Bright and Twilight Days to conduct my research. This research involved copying and studying ancient manuscripts, carefully preserved in the Blue Order libraries, within several days walking distance of Azera. I assigned readings and papers to keep my students amused while I pursued my research. I worked long hours in the Dark Days, but there was little else to do when the world was lit only by the Blue Lantern.

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02

I was dozing when the time-bell of Birdsong Square tolled two deep toned clangs marking the beginning of the day’s second quarter. Mist and rain had crept over Azera while I slept, so it was pitch black in my small sleeping room, even though the dark sleep curtains were not pulled close. With plenty of student papers to read, I fumbled for my Lankarian spark-torch on the floor beside me and rolled out of bed. I began my day by shadow boxing in the falling rain on the roof.

After drying off and breakfasting on tea and hot rice porridge, I shoved the last of my lecture notes into my satchel, donned an oiled canvas poncho, my hat, and collecting my short, city walking stick stepped out, pausing briefly to lock the door behind me. I made my way down the dark stairs with the help of my spark-torch, to the dark, damp and streaming wet streets of Azera. Unlike Kara, Azera has no street lights. Azerians have to rely on the pale light of the Blue Lantern that hangs high in the eastern firmament plus whatever light is cast to the street from whatever shops were open, to navigate its Dark Day streets. And when the rain came, hiding the Blue Lantern, Azerians had to rely on shop-lights alone, counting streets crossed, and noting familiar shops. Some used small oil lanterns to light their way. I had my spark-torch in my pocket if needed, but for the most part I just followed the vague figure before me, passing from one glistening pool of shop window light to the next, counting the streets, and boulevards as I crossed them. All wagons and carts carried lit lanterns which made crossing the streets relatively safe, though travel in the Rain Days is always somewhat of an adventure. It was,